It's a shot of the Vegas skyline at night. Aren't you glad we're not in Miami right now? A piano tinkles poignantly as the camera pans to an empty stage, and we see a number of balloons in an oversized champagne glass, indicating that something festive and stylish may be taking place soon. One of the auditorium doors opens up, and we see a woman walking in. The woman is a Little Person -- I'm just pointing that out up front -- and she climbs onto a box to check the light board for the stage, checking assorted lighting set-ups and smiling in relief as they work. She climbs down again and walks across the stage to a red runway, checking the lighting as she goes; the camera swivels from a perspective that follows her from the back to one that shows her thoughtful face, and in the background, we can see a sign reading "International Organization of Little People Fashion." As the camera continues to pan out -- the better to get a view of the sign -- we see the silhouette of a body dangling down in front of it. The woman turns around and looks noticeably startled; to her eternal credit, she merely gasps and stares. The camera swoops up so we're watching from a perspective slightly behind and higher than the corpse, with the woman standing in the middle of a white circle on the red runway. It's a nice shot.
Cut to Sara, Gil, and Nicky walking through a crowded hotel lobby; most of the crowd tops out somewhere in the four-foot range. Sara asks, "Is this some kind...of convention?" Gil answers, "Little People convention. Every year, they come from all over the world to a designated city -- socialize, network. It's their prom, New Year's Eve, and Olympics all rolled into one." We see a little person go zooming by in his wheelchair and run right into Nicky, barking his shins. Nicky leans down and says amiably enough, "Whoa! Hey! Excuse me!" "I don't think so, Square Jaw," the man shoots back. Oh, Nicky. It's a sad state of affairs when the extras are hired to mock you. Nicky watches the guy go, wondering whether his jaw is really all that square, or more trapezoidal. Oblivious to his travails, Sara and Gil walk on, Sara asking how Gil knows about the Little People convention. Because he read the same article in Spin I did a few years ago? No, because he gets the newsletter. Of course he does.
Back at the crime scene, Captain Exposition is holding forth: "Lawrence Ames, clothing salesman from Phoenix. He's 35, four foot five inches tall. One of the convention organizers found him --" We flash to the woman we saw earlier, who's giving a statement to an officer, or, if we want to get technical, to the officer's clipboard, which is eye-level to her. She looks miserable. Brass continues, "She was checking out the stage. There's a fashion show tomorrow, if you're interested. She looked up and saw him."
Gil's been scoping out the area. Sara's planted underneath the guy, and she muses, "Guy does a suicide in a public place, he was trying to make a statement." Gil registers the ten feet of space between Lawrence's feet and the floor and says skeptically, "Suicide?" Sara counters that it's a reasonable suspicion. Poor Nicky tries to demonstrate that he's been reading up just like everyone else, but he picks the wrong thing to demo when he says, "Suicide rate in any disability group is above average." Gil issues the first Nicky-related reprimand of the episode with, "Being a dwarf doesn't mean you're disabled, Nick. It means you're short." Then, because he can't resist the opportunity to make a pun and send us into the credits rolling our eyes, Gil says, "I think we've got a little murder."
And we go to the credits. Then there are the commercials, one of which is for Dancing at the Harvest Moon, which asks us to believe that having Jacqueline Bisset fall for the adolescent son of her long-lost dead boyfriend is in no way unsettling.
Once we're back from the credits, we're at the B-plot, with Catherine briskly walking toward the scene before she's derailed by a coworker hitting on her: "My favorite CSI. I was hoping you'd get the call out." Catherine rises to the occasion with aplomb by purring, "So, look who's back in town. What happened, Drew, you didn't like Idaho? Is that it?" Drew answers, "It had everything but you." Catherine laughs it off, and asks Drew what's inside. Drew replies that there's a body -- male, Caucasian, probably the victim of a "home invasion." Whatever happened to being murdered in your bed, or some other phrase capable of accurately describing the brutality behind having someone break into your house and kill you? "Home invasion" sounds so...I mean, if you've got Visigoths sacking your dining room, that's a home invasion. Being killed by a robber is something else. Ahem. While I've been ruminating on the pernicious spread of gormless euphemisms, Drew's been telling Catherine that he's going to go door and quiz the neighbors. He asks her to keep him posted; she smiles back, "Always did." Catherine then gives him the flirty look and pivots on her heel, leaving Drew to just kind of drool after her. I think we just might have ourselves the successor to the building inspector throne.
Catherine heads into the house. As she walks in, there's a youngish cop standing upwind of the body, looking as though he's acutely regretting his vocational choice at the moment. Catherine and the cop exchange introductions; his name is Akers. Finding out two new characters' names in the space of seconds is so unfamiliar. I'm practically giddy with the excitement of it all. Catherine asks if Akers cleared the place. He replies that he's just finishing. Catherine walks over and looks at the character, who's looking a little scruffy for such a swank pad. She whips out a camera and begins shooting; behind her, Akers is audibly breathing from his mouth. Catherine hunkers down and grimaces a little at the smell. Just then, her cell rings, so she answers; this is how we establish that Warrick is on his way, but taking his time per Catherine's assurance that the dead body isn't going anywhere any time soon. Once she hangs up, poor Akers tries to give a matter-of-fact report: "We were just pulling out of the chili place when dispatch radio, uh, arrived on scene 1900 hours. My partner secured the perimeter. I've been in here..." Catherine pulls on her gloves and asks, "This is your first time on body watch?" Akers nods, his gorge working. Catherine drawls, "Well, alive, it's inside your bowels. Dead, it ends up on the floor." I imagine that must drive clean-freak suicides crazy. Akers looks as though he's moments from revisiting his dinner, and Catherine shoos him out impatiently with, "Go, go, go, go, go -- just get some air." He does.
Catherine whips out a jar of fingerprint powder and begins dusting the small appliance to the body. She then surveys the room and begins moving over to one corner to begin dusting. Catherine works for a few moments -- long enough to give us the sense that, gosh, it's been a while and shouldn't something be happening right about now? -- and as she's inspecting her glove, she notices a shadow moving behind a screen. There is enough time for her to look up and realize that shouldn't be happening before the door fully opens and a figure bursts out, and knocks her straight into the plot of the Lifetime movie They Said The Place Was Cleared: The Catherine Willows Story. The guy tries to drive Catherine into the nearest wall, but she's pushing back, hollering, "Suspect on location! Suspect on location!" Catherine manages to push herself free of the guy, but he then smacks her with a blunt object and she ends up on the floor, rolling around and groaning in pain. Conveniently, this is when Akers and company troop in. The assailant decides to beat feet.
The cops come in, doing the cop thing, and then Warrick's there, asking urgently, "Cath, are you all right?" "Out back," she answers. We get a good look at her location -- inches from the body. Warrick leans down and touches her back, and Catherine assures him breathlessly, "I'm all right. I'm okay." He heads off and Catherine raises herself up, realizing that she's now covered in the victim's blood. Warrick chooses that moment to come back in and tell Catherine, "He must have gone out the back window." Catherine sits on the floor, her hair falling in her face, looking at Warrick as if she just realized what happened. Warrick wheels on poor, queasy Akers, saying angrily, "Were you the first officer on a scene? When you clear a place, you clear it, do you understand?" Akers begins stammering apologies, and Warrick continues, "We lost a CSI two years ago because of the same mistake!" Actually, we lost that CSI because you decided to go play the ponies, Warrick, and that wasn't really a mistake so much as it was a bad judgment call. But I don't blame Warrick for being jumpy: he's had Holly Gribbs killed on his watch, Brass knocked silly, and Nicky thrown out a window, and now this. People back at the Labitrail might as well begin the dead pool on who's going to get the Warrick Whammy .
Catherine cuts Warrick off mid-tirade: "Ease up. My fault. I sent him out." Warrick angrily orders Akers to use his radio and call for backup; the boy scampers out to do so. Warrick then hunkers down beside Catherine, who's sounding a little sniffly. She's also got an impressive abrasion on her forehead. He asks if she's okay, and Catherine says she's all right. He leans in to check out her forehead, and Catherine jerks away from Warrick's fingers, pointing out, "I'm evidence."
Meanwhile, Sara, Gil, and Nicky are working the scene while Emergency Backup David begins cutting down the noose. Gil stops Emergency Backup David by pointing out that he's got a hair in the knot. Whoever manages to untie that knot and get the hair out will rule over all of Asia. Gil instructs Emergency Backup David to cut higher up the rope, so that he can preserve the noose and knot as is. Speaking of rope-related developments, Nicky found some rope used as a handrail; it matches the rope used to hang Ames. After David cuts the rope, Ames's body falls onto the waiting gurney with a thud, and everyone leans over to check out the abraded area around his neck. Gil takes the opportunity to look up toward the rafters again.
Back at the It's Only A Minor Bump, Really: The Catherine Willows Story, Catherine's putting on a fresh pair of gloves and tending to her wound. Warrick hands her a swab and tells her, "I could do this for you." "It's not going to hurt any less," she replies. Yes, but then maybe you could get a kiss for your owie, Catherine. I'm just making a suggestion. Catherine swabs the wound, and as she inhales in pain, Warrick notes, "That cut's deep." See, Catherine? Kiss for the owie. You can wait until after you're done being evidence if you're really that concerned. Carpe Warrick! Anyway, Catherine hands Warrick the swab and tells him to turn around, because she wants privacy. She begins taking off her jacket, explaining, "The guy bodied me full-on. I don't want Trace to miss one hair or fiber." From the recesses of the couch, Mr. Sobell offers to dust Catherine for prints, just to make sure they got everything. Warrick holds the bag so Catherine can toss her jacket and shirt over his shoulder, then asks if she's decent. We see the coroner pulling the body out, then Warrick ushering them toward the door. Catherine has a slo-mo moment of hesitation that will double nicely for the promotion shot in Dammit, That Was My Favorite Shirt: The Catherine Willows Story, then heads in, all business.
While all this is going on, Gil's in the morgue, taking a gander at two circular scars bisecting Ames's calves and commenting, "These scars are old. Tell me this wasn't bone-lengthening surgery." David The Incredibly Knowledgeable Coroner can't: "Probably done when he was a teenager. Surgical pins are inserted into the bones and linked to an external screw. Turn the screw, it cracks the bones. Osteogenic cells flood in, callus forms to bridge the gap. The fractures heal, and the bone gets longer." How incredibly logical -- osteogenic cells are spindle-shaped connective tissue cells that can differentiate into osteoblasts, which are the cells that secrete the matrix-like material that knits a bone together. Eventually, osteoblasts stop secreting and become mature bone cells known as osteocytes. So basically, the surgery uses extremely manufactured conditions to take advantage of the body's processes for healing as a way to alter the body. David continues, "You have to break the bones every four to six hours a quarter-millimeter at a time. Excruciating pain for an extra few inches." Well, not everyone can take those pills offered via email and grow 1-3 inches OVERNITE!!!! Gil looks pretty horrified at all this -- maybe he saw the same TMICam shots the rest of America did, which detailed the screws going in, the bone breaking, and the cells responding. Or maybe Gil's thinking about all the hazards of bone-lengthening surgery David didn't mention: possible circulatory, muscular, or nerve damage, what with blood vessels, muscles and skin being forced to stretch along with the bone; the ever-present threat of infection, because the pins which facilitate the breaking are inserted through the skin and left there until the bone heals in about six months. Gil finally comments, "What people will endure to be 'normal.'" David editorializes, "'What fools these mortals be.'" Thank you, Puck. That will be all. David and Gil get to talking about hanging, and we find out that, according to David, "this bruise behind the ear is characteristic of hanging. This bruise [further down the neck] is not." Gil wonders if it's the result of blunt force, and David directs him to the x-rays, where we see that Ames's first and second vertebrae were separated prior to his death. Gil asks, "He was paralyzed." David explains, "That's something that would only happen to a dwarf with pseudoachondroplasia. Physiology can make for cervical spine instability." Gil replies, "So it's possible that whoever did this knows something about dwarf anatomy." We then see the unnamed person jamming a spike precisely between the vertebrae in another gooey TMICam shot. David concurs, "Hmmmm."
Over at That Lonely Train Whistle Sure Adds To The Unease: The Catherine Willows Story, Catherine's walking back toward the wall of sliding screens where she first met her assailant. We flash back, and then Catherine tells Warrick, "He was drinking. I smelled beer." Warrick digests this information, then heads out to process the back of the house for clues. He peels off a partial footprint, and we flash to the man who assaulted Catherine hopping over the fence. In the meantime, Catherine's pulling a denim fiber from the cabinet, but can't recover any prints. Once Warrick comes back in, he concludes, "I don't think our dead guy lived here." Based on what? The fact that the dead guy looks like a roadie for Kid Rock and this house looks as though it belongs to a childless couple whose uniting passion is a fervent desire to get featured in House Beautiful? Warrick, however, is going on something more solid: the pictures on the fridge, which show a happy couple together. On impulse, I check our collection of fridge pictures; anyone looking to deduce anything about the occupants in our place would conclude that the place had been annexed as part of a pediatric commune. Our friends have been busy lately. Anyway, the police are checking for the homeowner's name real estate records, and Catherine concludes that what they're looking at isn't a case of a homeowner's brutal murder, but rather, an intruder's.
The woman we saw lo those many scenes ago before the credits is busy working the one-armed bandit, seemingly oblivious to Sara and Gil hovering around her. Sara's asking, "So would you mind if we tape-lifted your shirt, combed your hair for evidence?" The woman turns around and asks peevishly, "Evidence of what?" Sara, whose people skills have been deteriorating in Gil's orbit, explains, "Well, the first person at a crime scene often turns out to be a viable suspect." Oh, that's sure to make her cooperate. The woman keeps playing the slots, eschewing the easily accessible button on the console in favor of using a long handle with a clasping device on the end to pull down the slot machine arm. Gil is fascinated by this display of a tool-using primate. The woman irritably points out, "I'm the one who found his body. I'm the one who called it in." So? Those events are in no way logically linked to exculpation. Sara, who is getting nothing in the way of backup from a riveted Gil, points out that "it'll rule you out." The woman grudgingly gives permission. She then notices Gil studying her intently and asks crankily, "Does he ever talk?" Sara replies, "Yeah. At random intervals." I'm thinking Sara has to field that question a lot.
Gil finally speaks: "I was admiring your reaching tool." Flattery will get you nowhere with this woman; she responds, "I have one I use to wipe my tush with. Would you like to take a look at that too?" Sara hides her grin. Gil's unfazed, and replies, "If the world doesn't adapt itself to you, you have to adapt yourself to it, right?" This throws the woman for a loop. She agrees, then continues, "You know, you probably think I'm cold, pulling slots after I found Lawrence up there. This is the convention. Everything moves at warp speed." Sara tells everyone she's done, and the woman climbs down for round two of the sermon: "Fifty-one weeks in your hometown, with nothing but average-sized people. I have to fit a lifetime into this week. We all do. Business connections, gambling, romance..." She turns to walk off, narrowing missing the rain of anvils that began falling the minute she opened her mouth. The $5 blackjack table behind her was not so lucky. Gil then stops the woman -- Gil, no! I can't take another lecture! -- and asks if Lawrence had any problems with connections, gambling, or romance. This prompts another small exposition: "Not at all. Lawrence was a pseudo. He could have his pick of any girl in here." She walks off, so it's safe for Sara to ask, "What's a pseudo?" Gil answers, "Dwarves with pseudoachondroplasia have features and head size like normal people. Dwarves with achondroplasia have shortened limbs and enlarged heads." Sara asks incredulously, "Different types of dwarves, different social status?" Gil replies, "Discrimination isn't just for tall people."
Neither is stupidity, if the beginning of this scene is anything to go by. Gil and Sara clip the crime scene tape across the door to Lawrence's room, open the door, and discover a woman sitting contemplatively on the bed. Unless she's tagged for evidence, she shouldn't be there. Gil and Sara stop short, and Gil says, "Excuse me. Isn't this Lawrence Ames's room?" The woman replies, "Yes." "Are you blind, or did you not notice the crime scene tape blocking it off?" Gil asks. Oh, he does not. He asks in a considerably peeved tone, "Who are you?" The woman swings her legs around and lopes on over, saying, "I'm his fiancée." Gil and Sara exchange a look. The girl continues, "We always got those looks." What, the look that accompanies contaminating a crime scene? Exactly how many times has this airhead thwarted justice, anyway? She continues, "I'm five seven, in case you were wondering." No, my statistical concern was focused more on IQ, but thanks. ["Same numbers apply, roughly, I'm thinking." -- Sars] Sara points out, "Our concern isn't your height; it's your proximity. You're standing in a potential crime scene." Gil pulls out a chair and directs her, "Would you please sit down here? We want to keep the contamination to a minimum." She looks skeptical; Sara calls for a uniform. Gil asks the now-seated simpleton, "Didn't the police tell you not to come in here?" "The heart has its reasons," she responds. Or something equally boneheaded. Gil begins looking at Lawrence's things -- a broken reaching tool, a laptop computer that has mysteriously stayed fully powered this whole time -- and notices a scrape in the paint on the wall opposite this tableau. He calls Sara over to look at the gouge, which is deeper at the bottom than at the top, so the strike was made coming down. Sara notices the missing piece of plastic from the reaching tool, then turns around to ask the girl, "Did you and Mr. Ames have an argument, say, last night?" The girl flatly denies it. She notices Gil and Sara looking extremely skeptical and asks, "You don't believe me?" Gil replies, "Well, right now, we believe the evidence."
And now, back to That's Going To Leave A Mark: The Catherine Willows Story. She and Warrick are leaning over the skanky dead guy, and Catherine's asking what the marks on his forearms are. The marks -- which we see in TMICam -- are tiny, suppurating craters. Mmm! Emergency Backup David can't say what they are. However, he's very excited about being able to report that "Teddy Henders died from blunt force trauma." Warrick's wondering what was responsible for the blunt trauma; in a tone of voice more often associated with embarking on the train ride to The Land Of Make-Believe, Emergency Backup David says he was just preparing to find out. He then whips out an electric razor.
We get a quick shot of Catherine watching -- the mess on her head has been replaced by a pink, puffy area bisected by an open cut -- and then we cut back to Emergency Backup David. He cuts away a swath of hair to reveal a huge purple-and-black wound, then clears away the spare hair so we can all see the "Z" embedded in the guy's skin. Catherine says, "Z? There was a Z-mover video game on the floor to the vic?" You mean he's not the spawn of Zatan? Catherine muses, "Murder by Z-mover." I'm beginning to suspect that CSI is the anti-product-placement show -- first with the "these aren't M&Ms! Really!" and now with the "neither a Sony PlayStation nor a Microsoft X-Box! Honest!" There's probably a side racket in extorting companies like Proctor & Gamble: "Pay up, or someone dies by Crest."
Warrick's mind is on the crime: "The neighbors heard shouting. Two guys break and enter, and get into some kind of an altercation." We flash to two men getting into a shoving match, then one picking up the Z-mover and beaning the other with it. Then we get the squishiest TMICam shot of the night, all rupturing blood vessels filling a field with red. This is a night of grue, I tell you what. Catherine comments, "And one ends up killing the other." "And almost Catherine," Emergency Backup David replies, desperate to be part of a social interaction, any social interaction. He continues awkwardly, "That had to be scary, huh?" Catherine looks outraged that he brought it up, and says angrily, "I didn't have time to be scared, David." He looks abashed; I have a soft spot for Emergency Backup David, so I feel for the poor guy. Warrick gives David a beleaguered look and follows Catherine out.
Back in the violated suite, Gil is peering down to check out a finished bottle of champagne and two flutes, one of which is smudged with lipstick. He asks the moron fiancée, "Is the lipstick on this champagne glass yours?" She replies, "No champagne for me. I'm pregnant. Only seven weeks." "I didn't ask if you drank champagne; I asked if the lipstick on the glass was yours," Gil snaps. I wish. Neither CSI congratulates her on her impending bundle of joy; Sara asks if the computer on the table is hers or Lawrence's. Oh, please -- the woman would require assistance flipping a light switch; you're expecting her to be able to operate machinery? Since the computer is Lawrence's, it's going back to the Labitrail. With a look of great peevishness, Gil bags the mystery champagne glass.
Over on Lifetime, we're back at She Apparently Left Vegas For Leafier Locations: The Catherine Willows Story. Catherine is leaning against a CSIMobile, contemplating the rolling hills immediately visible from the parking lot. Warrick calls, "Cath? You all right?" He orders Catherine not to let Emergency Backup David get to her. Emergency Backup David? It's not like he was singing the "nah nah, you got attacked" song. Anyway, Catherine uses this time to admit that she was scared, and she still is. She asks Warrick, "Don't tell anyone, okay?" and he pulls her into a big hug, his hand moving scandalously low on her back. Go, Catherine, I say.
And now, it's time for Nicky's weekly humiliation at the hands of Gil. Oh, wait, I spoke too soon -- it's time for the weekly comedy scene courtesy of Liam the lab tech. We learn that Liam has been tasked with the Gordian knot and only got a few brown hairs off the rope, one of which has a skin tag. We also find out that the fibers Sara found on the body are polyester upholstery -- "cheap rugs and tacky furniture." Just then, Gil stops by. Maybe we'll get our humiliation now. He tells Liam, "I need these hairs," and Liam warns him there's no DNA tags on them. That matters not to Gil; he takes the hairs and disappears. Liam says, "I hate it when he does that. I like to make a presentation, you know?" Nicky wants to know, so what is he, chopped liver? Apparently so. Liam gestures him to the microscope, where we all see fresh epithelial cells. Liam says he got them from the anchor point of the rope -- it's a small sample, but useable. Now, if only they had something to compare the sample to. Liam's calling for the blood of the fiancée; Nicky points out that, regrettably, that requires a court order. Liam points out, "I'm open 24 hours." Nicky gives him a look that can be interpreted in a wide variety of ways.
A few doors down, Sara's geeking out. Try to contain your surprise. She's going through Lawrence's computer, reading his old chat transcripts. If this show doesn't convince people to scrub their computers clean of all illicit activity, I don't know what will. We see the following transcript:
Danielle256: I met you in a pseudo chat room. do you remember me? I'm the one who liked French films and Soderberg.
Lawrence1801: I remember you. Love Soder too.
Danielle256: You going to the Convention this year? I'd love to meet you. See if you can pick me out. I'm four even. Perfect face, perfect body. All yours.
Cut to a hotel bar, where the tart-tongued woman we've seen in prior scenes is sitting at a bar with two girlfriends when Gil comes over. He leans in and says, "Ms. [Melanie] Grace? I need your help." She snaps back, "What now -- my DNA?" Gil replies guilelessly, "No, actually, your eyes." Melanie gives an elaborate eye-roll, then shoots Gil a what-the-hell expression. In the shot she's looking at the shot of Danielle, saying, "I'm sorry. I don't recognize her. And a girl this pretty, I would remember. The guys would still be drooling." Gil notes that nobody named Danielle is registered at either the hotel or the convention, and Melanie laughs at him for being so naive as to expect people to register under their internet handles. She tell him, "Maybe the girl got cold feet. My first IOLP convention, I walk in and see two hundred dwarves staring back at me. The first thought that goes through my head? There's no way I look like these people. I ran." Gil says admiringly, "But you went back." Melanie concedes, "I guess I realized it's nice to see eye-to-eye with someone." Gil smiles and nods in a wistful sort of way, and Melanie bats her eyes at him as she says, "I get the impression that's a little tough for you." Gil gives Melanie the look he gets when he's struggling to recover from someone's correct personal assessment. Melanie smiles a little, then quotes, "'The freaks have looked at her in a secret way, and tried to connect their eyes to hers, as though to say, we know who you are. We are you.'" Gil grins at this literary challenge, and tries to guess who the quote is from.
Gil: Faulkner.
Melanie: Close. Another Southern writer.
Gil: Tennessee Williams?
Melanie: Colder.
Gil: Truman Capote.
Melanie: Arctic.
Gil: Rita Mae Brown?
Melanie: Warmer. Technically.
Gil: Ernest Hemingway?
Melanie: Having a house in Key West doesn't make you Southern.
Gil: Dave Barry?
Melanie: Oh, for God's -- look, do you want me to give you a hint? Woman, compassionate observer of humanity without being sentimental.
Gil: Flannery O'Connor?
Melanie: Because compassion is the first word that comes to mind in her writing? Look -- it's Carson McCullers, okay? CARSON MCCULLERS! Can we get on with you interrogating me now? Like, about the murder?
Or something along those lines. Gil drops some philosophy on Melanie with, "I think we look for the differences in each other to prove that we're not alone." Grace bluntly asks what his difference is. Grace, your first mistake is assuming that Gil's only got one difference; your second is assuming that we've got an extra six hours to get into the Tao of Gil. Anyway, Melanie says assuredly, "Mine's the worst -- random gene. Anyone can have a dwarf." Well, actually, it's a little more complicated than that -- the gene for achondroplasia has been identified as a mutation in the fibroblast growth factor receptor-3 gene (FGFR3; ), which is located at on chromosome number 4, at location 4p16.3. Once the gene is present in the germ line, it's an autosomal dominant disorder -- meaning that as long as one person has a copy of the gene, it can be expressed. ("Achondroplasia is defined by recurrent G380R mutations of FGFR3." American Journal of Human Genetics 56: 368-373, 1995. I've done more homework for this show than I did as an undergraduate in biology...) But the point I was getting at is this: the gene has to mutate first, and while that mutation certainly can seem random, it's not necessarily one of those "little people can strike at any time!" fears. Ahem -- back to Melanie's monologue about how she strikes fear in the hearts of strangers, including Randy Newman. After she's done, Gil points out that he also carries a genetic curse which is both "progressive and impossible to predict." Plus he's going deaf. Melanie says, "And hard to notice. Unless you tell someone." What, Gil? Telling the people he sees on an everyday basis what sort of crisis he's grappling with? Perish the thought.
Taking a moment away from the science for some light entertainment with The Woman Who Got Beeped: The Catherine Willows Story, we focus on Catherine and Warrick unraveling their pesky case. As it turns out, the skin of the dead guy and the denim fibers the assailant left behind are both coated with the same substance -- partially hydrogenated soybean oil, traces of beef fat, sugar, and potato starch. Everyone who read Fast Food Nation is suddenly clued in. Catherine's but a moment behind: cooking grease. Well, that certainly explains the marks on the guy's forearms. We see the grease burns he probably got in flashback -- and then, as a patch of skin bubbles, in TMICam. I get the feeling the entire TMICam department went wild with this episode. Catherine muses that the grease burns might indicate the guy worked in fast food. Just then, Detective Drew comes back in to tell us, "I got a feeling they both did. The owner of the house has a franchise of fast-food places, uh, Fast and Fresh Burgers. I just got off the phone with him in Hawaii. Alvin Jackson. Three stores in the Vegas area. And he's on his yearly vacation." Apparently, when the boss is away, his employees play. Warrick and Catherine head out to check on addresses; it's not clear whether they're employee addresses or franchise addresses.
It's time to find out who Danielle is. We're in the lab with Sara and Archie, and Archie's scanning in the picture as Sara implores him to find any useful info that would give a hint to Danielle's location or whereabouts. Archie looks for a moment, and then smiles at Sara before saying, "Oh, I get it. This is like a test, right?" Sara gives him the "huh?" face. Archie replies, "Individual hair shadows are amorphous where they should be distinct, and these two areas here and here, on the same focal plane -- this one's sharp and this one's fuzzy." Sara realizes the picture's a fake. Archie corrects her: "A composite. A very good one."
Cut to Gil saying peevishly, "This explains why nobody ever saw her -- she only exists in pixels." Anyone who thinks Gil sat through S1m0ne and was supremely annoyed by it, raise your hand. He then muses, "Nat King Cole." Sara's confused. Gil crops out the face and asks Archie to separate out the composite elements. We see the face reduced to several symmetrical planes. Gil then asks Archie to pull up a photo of Lawrence in gray-scale. He then tells everyone present, "There's a theory in art that the Mona Lisa was really a feminized version of Da Vinci himself." Sara takes a less romantic view of art, opining, "Concept suggests deep down, we're all narcissists?" Gil's pleased she got it: "Yeah. What attracts us the most is ourselves." Archie -- who's simply attractive, period -- looks thoughtful. Sara asks him to scale the pictures of Lawrence and Danielle, and -- surprise! Both of them have the same symmetry. Sara says, "Danielle is a virtual woman! Created to attract and lure Lawrence Ames -- away from his fiancée, maybe?" In that case, she was doing him a virtual favor. Brass takes that moment to speak, saying happily, "Boy, do I have good timing or what? I did some checking with the phone company. In the past year, Lawrence Ames received over two hundred calls from Melanie Grace...he got call-blocking against her two months ago." Sara muses, "Well, that's interesting. That's the same time Danielle started sending him instant messages." Gil looks very unhappy at this.
Melanie takes this conversation with her usual aplomb: "Yes, I called Lawrence. We met in a chat room. He also called me -- did you look at my phone records?" Brass gives us a timeline with: "He eventually blocked your calls, the same week he got engaged to Jessica Marcus." Gil adds, "It was at that time he began receiving messages from a perfect woman who doesn't really exist." Gil shows the compare-and-contrast between Lawrence and Danielle; it does not go over well with Melanie. Clearly stung, she asks, "You think I would do that? Present myself to a man as anything other than what I clearly am?" Brass, who has had no bonding moment with Melanie, offers, "If it would break up his engagement. So what happened? You went to the convention, you saw him with his tall girlfriend, and you go to Plan B?" What happened to Brass -- when did he begin cranking out the crackpot theories all the time? Why can't he be the one to offer some insight into the case and solve it for a change? Melanie looks over at Gil, who's brooding in her general direction. Melanie addresses him directly: "You think I'm capable of that? Killing because a woman has some height on me? Pretending to be an ideal -- if you think that, then I was wrong about you." Oh, that's gotta sting. Gil blinks his distress.
And now, Nicky among the little people. He's walking among the trade show, looking at the different vendors and checking out faces, when the attitude in the wheelchair rolls into him again. They play chicken for a few moments, and finally Nick snaps in exasperation, "Do you mind, little man? I'm trying to work here." Oh, for the love of -- what rock was he raised under in Texas? The way his character is written on the show, you'd think that he spent his entire life in some homogenous cult compound, dug his way to freedom, and ended up in Las Vegas as a dazed refugee who stumbled into crime-fighting and now spends his time awed that not everyone is like the kinfolk back at the Brotherhood of the Jaw. Anyway, the man in wheelchair asks, "Make any progress, CSI-man?" Nicky grudgingly admits to some. The man asks, "Are we getting your A-game or your B-game?" "Come again?" asks Nicky. The man says, "Us little people? We're used to getting the short end of the stick." Nicky snorts, and the man snaps, "You don't get to laugh at that." Then don't lob the softball shots. He then hits a lever, and his chair lifts up to Nicky's height. I want one of those chairs. More specifically, I want it in meetings, so I can lift myself above everyone else when appropriate and bellow, "Silence! I have spoken!" whenever I'm pitching an article. And I want the chair to hover, too. Okay -- where were we? Oh, yeah -- man with attitude in chair, Nicky wondering what sort of karmic kick-me sign he wears on his back that he should be lectured on his callowness by everyone around him. The guy persists, "I wanna know is, are you treating this like a case, or like a joke?" Nicky replies somberly, "Well, a man was killed; that's no joke." The man thinks on this for a few moments. Nicky says, "You got my A-game." The man is skeptical: "Yeah?" "The last person who doubted me ended up buried alive in Mojave! I'm a CSI -- I know how to kill someone and make it look like an accident. There are a lot of holes out in the desert, and I've filled a lot of them with those who have tormented me!" Nicky hisses. In my dreams. I'm waiting in anticipation of the Season Seven sweeps event when a CSI goes bad and it turns out that Nicky really has snapped after years of taunting. Anyway, on-screen, Grumpy is convinced of Nicky's sincerity and lets him pass. Looking chastened, Nicky continues on his way until he notices a man selling rope. Jakob Dylan sings the national anthem, Brass throws out the first clue, and the A-game has commenced.
Back in the lab, Liam's puttering around until he sees Gil. Then he frantically scoops up a number of papers and tears out of the lab, screaming, "Daddy! Love meeeee!" Actually, what he does is tell Gil, "There's something weird going on with the hairs and the ropes. Well, not weird. More like hair-raising." He smiles in appreciation of his own pun; Gil narrows his eyes warningly. Liam continues, "At first, I thought that maybe I was doing something wrong, running too many DNA samples, seeing things..." Gil snaps for Liam to skip to the good part, and Liam complies: "The dwarf hair has seven alleles in common with Jessica's skin cells." Cue your own Stone Dumb and the Seven Genes joke here. Gil asks dubiously, "The two donors are related?" The genes don't lie, Gil. Just then, the Grissomphone rings remarkably quietly.
Gil and Brass use the Gil Teleporter to meet Nicky on the show floor, where Nicky's carefully telling them, "He fit the profile. I asked around -- two little people confirmed he has CSS." "Nicky, they're little -- oh, wait. You said that right. I'm sure you'll screw up soon enough, so consider this the reprimand for what I miss," Gil replies. He's really hostile tonight. Or maybe that's me. Anyway, Gil and Brass head over to talk to Kevin Marcus (hey! it's Jessica's dad). Kevin invites Gil to feel his rope. The PTC whips itself into a frenzy before realizing that Kevin meant it literally. As Gil fondles the rope, Kevin tells him he's a major player in many retail rope markets. Gil asks, "So, what, do you buy from wholesalers and repackage in your home?" Kevin confirms this. Brass, ever the soul of subtlety, says, "Well, that explains how your daughter's skin cells got all over the rope that hung Lawrence Ames." Kevin looks confused, as if he's forgotten that Jessica is his daughter. You remember Jessica, Kevin -- tall, dim, unable to answer direct questions? Brass notes that the lab also found Kevin's hair all over the rope. Kevin smiles, "Well, I touch all the merchandise." Brass says, "Nice try, Kevin. The hair was caught in the noose." Kevin looks a lot less jolly all of a sudden.
In the tank, Nicky's asking Jessica, "Did you know your father killed Lawrence?" Jessica creaks, "That's what they told me. I couldn't believe it." Cut her some slack -- she's still digesting the news about Santa Claus. Meanwhile, Brass is telling Kevin, "So you created Danielle to break up your daughter's engagement..." "That's an interesting theory," Kevin replies. He continues, "What? You guys trace an online account to my credit card or something like that? Oh, no, wait -- I use a free ISP. That means no name, no trail, no case." Gil and Brass exchange a look, and Gil says, "Mr. Marcus, in your business, you deal with proportions, correct? You provide little people with what they need to compensate for their proportions, and to live with them. You know what little people aspire to be. Your logo is interesting -- Da Vinci's 'Vitruvian Man.' In the perfect human form, arm span equals height. You're very aware of what people are looking for in a mate, aren't you?"
Cut to Jessica telling Nicky, "The night before Lawrence died, he and I had a fight about Danielle." Flash to Jessica shouting, "You're seeing a composite, aren't you?" "And you're seeing someone who's tutoring you on the big-girl words!" Lawrence shouts back. Actually, it's more along the lines of your standard jealousy-fueled bickering. Jessica says, "And I ran out of the hotel, and I went to my dad. I was crying, and he told me to leave Lawrence. I couldn't, because I loved him and I'm having his baby. So I went back to our room and we made up. And the night, he said he was going out to meet a friend." We flash to Lawrence doing so, stopping to kiss Jessica goodbye along the way and telling her, "I'll be back in an hour." Jessica demonstrates that perhaps the "it's like Lawrence is sleeping, only he's never going to wake up" story has finally sunk in as she concludes, "And he never came back." Nicky merely nods. Nicky could end up being the CSIs' secret weapon: put him in a room, and people will just start yakking away.
Meanwhile, Brass is getting motivation from Kevin. After he asks what Kevin has against the guy, Kevin replies, "What are you, blind? He was a dwarf. My wife and I -- our daughter, a genetic miracle. One-in-four shot she'd be an average. A beautiful average." Gil realizes that Mrs. Marcus is also a dwarf. Kevin continues, "Jessica didn't have to fight the world every day like we did. We freed her from that. But that little bastard kept dragging her down right back into it." Brass concludes, "So you killed him." Kevin snaps that he didn't like Lawrence, but he didn't kill him. Gil looks skeptical. In the shot, he and Brass are exiting the room. As they talk over whether or not they can prove their hunch -- heights are against them -- they watch Kevin awkwardly get his coat on, and Gil points out that someone who can barely lift his arms over his shoulders is not going to be anchoring ropes to trusses nine feet off the ground. Brass snaps, "The guy put a rope around the victim's neck." Gil counters, "Yeah, but how did he hang him?"
And now, back to It'll Be Awhile Before I Can Have Fries With My Panic Attack: The Catherine Willows Story. Drew attempts to be all alpha-male about the impending scene, but lands somewhere around epsilon. From the driver's seat, Warrick smirks. Catherine insists she's going in, and Warrick swoops around for his shot at the alpha title: "The guy assaulted you. You don't have to put yourself through this, you know." Catherine advances the get-back-on-the-horse theory. Cue a lineup, where Catherine swabs people's noses to see who's inhaled her fingerprint powder, and hits the jackpot at Fry Flunky #4. The plot wraps up swiftly: they fought over the Z-mover; Nosehair Boy won it by dint of killing his competitor with it, then argues that he really didn't mean to kill anyone. He can argue all he wants as the cops dislocate his shoulders cuffing him. And thus concludes I Can Take Off The Scar Make-up Now: The Catherine Willows Story.
Gil has sent Sara and Nick back to the stage -- so I'm guessing Melanie found an alternate venue for the fashion show, then? -- and the two junior Turks are brainstorming when Nicky manages to reason the whole thing out: "The victim was paralyzed, couldn't fight back. Kevin Marcus puts a rope around his neck, and makes a slipknot." Sara's hung up on the truss and how the other end got up there. Nicky takes off his jacket -- evidently, he does his best work when he's playing Strip Forensics -- and gets on his knees. Sara asks what Nick's doing; he replies, "Changing my perspective." He tries reaching up, then asks, "Can you imagine going through life at this height?" Sara doesn't bother: "They do okay. If the world doesn't adapt itself to you --" "Adapt yourself to it," he says, smiling. Then how Kevin did it hits him -- with one of the wheelchairs. "Where's Grissom?" he asks.
Grissom is currently holding up a pillar in the lobby, watching Melanie chat with her friends and looking very broody about it. Melanie catches Gil glowering, and returns to looking at her friends, somewhat subdued. Gil goes back to staring until Sara and Nick come up to tell Gil that they know how Kevin did it. We then transition to Brass laying it out: Kevin lured Lawrence to the auditorium with a message about Jessica, then sweet-talked him into sitting in the elevating wheelchair by saying he wanted Lawrence to model it. Once Lawrence was in the chair, Kevin paralyzed him with a quick blow, then raised the chair so he and Lawrence were at the noose's height, then looped the noose around the conscious, paralyzed Lawrence. He then lowered the chair again. Kevin justifies the whole thing to Gil and Brass with, "I couldn't let Jessica marry him. Any kid they have...a 50-percent chance it would be a dwarf. You have to understand that." Brass then revisits an old habit of Gil's by informing Kevin of Jessica's pregnancy. They love delivering that kind of news, don't they? Also, what's with the people on this show telling total strangers about medical things -- deafness, pregnancy -- while not informing the people in their everyday lives? You'd think Jessica would have said something to her father. After Kevin is led out in cuffs, Gil opines, "You know what's really sad? This wasn't just a murder. It was a hate crime. Kevin Marcus hated himself." After that moment of Gil, everyone scatters.
In the final scene, we see Gil back at the college for the deaf, again leaning against a pillar and watching the world go by. He seems to be more at peace, however; I get the feeling he's thinking about Melanie's story of her first IOLP meeting. A professor comes up, greeting him in both spoken and sign, "Dr. Grissom, welcome back." Gil smiles and responds totally in sign; I don't know ASL, but it looks like he's saying something about lip-reading. Well, it's smart to take it before you're forced to rely on it. He and the professor end their exchange, and Gil leans back against the pillar, looking around and appearing to get more comfortable with the idea that he belongs there.